


The Hills; 1914

by inanatticinnovember



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 1910s, Alternate Universe, M/M, Northern Ireland, Shameless Big Bang, like really flowery omg, really flowery language, sailors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 20:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2402273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inanatticinnovember/pseuds/inanatticinnovember
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikhail, a lonely Ukrainian fisherman come to Northern Ireland, is in love with the sea. If he’s going to be honest, it’s probably the only thing he thinks he’ll ever really love. And then he comes across a day dreamy wistful Irish farm boy named Ian who won’t shut up and won’t stop moving and Mikhail finds himself carelessly running after him, unable to slow down, unable to stop falling for his eyes like green hills. And maybe he gets a little too caught up. But for a summer, everything is fine and nothing hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ash Grey Drowning

_July 8th, 1914; Lamb’s Head Cove, Larne, Northern Ireland_

Everything is deeply blue.

The water is cold, burning his bare chest and the tips of his fingers as he dives into the gray. It envelopes him like a swarm of jellyfish and his trousers are pulling at him, dragging him back up towards the surface. He fights it with ease, pushing downwards as if he’s become part of the water himself.

The brine burns his eyes and the depths seem to go on forever but the boy is somewhere. Mikhail is sure of it,he’d seen him jump from the cliff by himself, seen him disappear under the waves.

Something had happened.

Mikhail knows what it’s like to drown.

The waves are harsh, pushing and pulling, beating at his face every time he surfaces. He dives under again and again, each breath full of salt and sting, his arms aching from the cold that fills him up and twists his bones. His chest begins to feel like a fish tank. But he’s soldiering on, blinking past the brine, the storm heavy sky disappearing from view every time he ducks beneath the startled water.

The first glimpse of a pale arm gets his heart racing and he’s diving deeper, reaching, reaching, grasping hold of a slippery wrist and pulling. Arms loop around limp waist and Mikhail’s bringing the boy to the surface, bracing him against his fish tank chest. Mikhail is numb and he’s coughing but the boy is safe in his arms.

Mikhail struggles to get the boy onto the boat, pushing his heavy water logged body over the hull before climbing up himself, bracing his bare feet against the boards of the underside of the ship and hauling himself upwards, scrambling to find purchase on the railings. Bitter water pools beneath him, falls across his forehead, dumping onto the deck as he staggers, his chest heaving for air. The pale boy lies dying on his deck.

The boy’s got ginger hair that sticks to his forehead and a fading field of freckles across his cheeks that almost look like stars. His skin is milk white, all of the rosy color drained from him, his mouth open limply, lips slick, rubbery blue. Mikhail drops to his wet knees beside him, fumbling to lift his head back and breathe into his mouth, their lips devastatingly cold together. He moves to compress the boy’s chest, pushing hard over and over before breathing into his mouth, again and again and again. It’s raining by the time the boy starts to cough profusely, shell pink froth clinging to his lips, his body bending at the middle as he nearly hacks up a lung, sucking in air as best he can. Mikhail moves to support him, sitting him up, his back against Mikhail’s chest as he sputters before he’s leaning over and vomiting mostly water onto the deck. His whole body is shaking, his fingers gripping Mikhail’s trousers tightly, his knuckles turned blue. He vomits a second time and continues to cough, leaning forward. Mikhail’s pushing the boy’s hair out from his face, but the rain is running into both their eyes and neither of them can see.

Mikhail eases his arms under the boy’s and hauls him up, helping him stumble to the cabin, disorientated and confused. He’s shivering like a mad man and the room is dark. Mikhail sits him down on the moth bitten hammock sort of bed he has, moving quickly to help him remove his soggy waistcoat and trousers, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. Neither of them are speaking to each other and his eyes are so green that it seems like the hills surround his pupils. It takes Mikhail’s breath away every time he looks at them.

Mikhail has seen him before, in the market, enthusiastically selling bags of barley, and on the docks,skipping stones while his toes brush the top of the water. Mikhail had admired him from afar, as much as he dislikes to admit it, and now, here he is, presented before him, with blue lips shivering, his eyes bright and full of fear.

Mikhail bites his bottom lip and moves quickly to the outer part of the cabin where he has a very small wood stove, his feet leaving wet footprints in his wake. He lights the stove to warm the place up and grabs a few blankets, but by the time he comes back to the room, the boy is curled up on his side, having fallen asleep, the green cotton of the hammock swinging gently.

Mikhail places the cup of water on a crate beside the hammock, grabbing more blankets from beneath it and quietly placing them over the boy. It’s been a long time since someone has slept in his bed and he doesn’t know what to do except sit on a stool beside him and listen to the rain on the roof.

He doesn’t know anything of this boy, but there’s something about him, something filling him up to the brim that Mikhail can’t put his finger on. He’s in awe with it and afraid of it at the same time. 

 

\--

 

Mikhail sits there in front of him for a very long time, watching the way his chest rises and falls. He doesn’twant to leave, afraid the boy might stop breathing while he’s away. He sits until he himself falls asleep, his chin against his chest as the storm passes over their heads.

He dreams of the sea and the boy passing like sun beams.

He wakes in the morning, the sun shining through the window, his hands coming up to rub his eyes blearily, his back cracking as he stretches. The boy is still asleep in front of him. Mikhail decides to leave him be, let him sleep while he goes about his business.

The day is full of sun and Mikhail manages a good haul of fish. He periodically checks on the boy and by midday the kid’s stopped shivering all together. Mikhail places some bread by the bedside for him when he wakes up before coming back to the deck with relief, glad that a chance of sickness has passed.

The boy doesn’t wake up until late afternoon.

“This bread for me?”

Mikhail nearly jumps out of his sun tired skin, turning around to face the cabin, the boy leaning in the doorway.

“Who else would it be for?” Mikhail says irritably, unused to being disturbed while he works. He has to scramble to bring the English to his lips, tripping over his words.

The boy gives him a look before tearing off a piece of bread and sauntering over to stand beside Mikhail. He’s put his trousers back on, still brittle from the salt, but dry enough.

“What happened?”

Mikhail looks up at him, angered by how clear his height is now. He towers above the fisherman like an old oak.

“Don’t remember? Your stupid Irish ass decided it would be a fantastic idea to jump off a cliff by yourself,” Mikhail says, having to think hard to work himself back into a second language he’s hardly very comfortable with.  He looks away from the kid to watch the harbor grow larger and larger in the distance. The sun is beginning to set behind them. It’s gold in the boy’s wheat fields of hair.

“I was proving a point.” The boy smiles, throwing another piece of bread into his mouth.

“Points don’t really matter when you’re dead, kid.”

“Am I dead?”

“No, but only cause I saved your sorry ass.”

“ _Point proven._ ” The kid laughs and Mikhail is rolling his eyes.

“Whatever point you have to prove, I suggest it not include jumping from a fuckin’ cliff into a rocky cove while a storm is about to hit, especially when—”

“—you can’t swim.”

“Exact— you can’t swim, kid? What…? What you got up there, fuckin’ marbles?”

“I was proving a point.” The kid shrugs.

“You’re a grade-A idiot, y’know that?” Mikhail says, and for some reason he’s smiling. And the boy’s smiling too, his cheek rounding out as he chews, his green eyes bright with something Mikhail can’t quite place.

“Idiot, insane, whatever you wanna call it,” he’s saying and then he’s shoving his hand forward. “I’m Ian by the way.”

Mikhail doesn’t bother to take it, his attention focused partly on trying not to run his boat into a dock and partly on wiping the smile off his face.

“Mikhail,” he grumbles in return, and Ian reaches to grab Mikhail’s hand anyway, shaking it roughly before he’s slipping around the mast and heading for the side of the boat. He climbs up nimbly onto the railing, grinning at Mikhail stupidly, his cheeks rosy again.

“Nice to meet you Mikhail—hey, thanks for saving my life!” He says and then he’s jumping down onto the dock and starting off for shore. Mikhail watches him bewilderedly for a moment before waving his arm at him.

“Hey Ian!” He calls, not exactly sure what he’s doing, a sudden voice coming out of him that he doesn’t know the origin of. All he knows is that Ian’s name feels so incredibly comfortable in his mouth that it nearly shocks him into silence. “You ever wanna learn how to swim, come by, I can teach ya a thing or two!”

Ian is smiling at him and giving him a sort of captain’s salute before turning and running barefoot up the docks. Mikhail has no idea what just happened, just that he hopes, for some ungodly reason, that Ian comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, big bang fic. I've been working on it for months and I'm not sure if I'm completely and totally happy with it, but, hey, whatever. I hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> I'd like to thank Allie (queermccoy.tumblr.com) for betaing and just being really encouraging about this whole thing. Love you girl. I'd also like to thank my amazing artist (coucourfeyrac.tumblr.com) for also being really awesome.   
> Her beautiful artwork can be found [here!](http://coucourfeyrac.tumblr.com/post/99247220168/some-pieces-i-did-as-a-part-of-the-shameless-big) Go look at it, it's lovely!
> 
> Alright, anyway, enjoy!
> 
> \--
> 
> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


	2. Deeply Blue

_July 12th, 1914; Larne Harbor, Larne, Northern Ireland_

“What are you talking about?” Mikhail mumbles, running a hand through his hair as he leans over the railing. His face is full of sleep, his hair sticking up all over the place.

The morning is gray, flecked with rain drops.

“You promised me a swimming lesson,” Ian says from where he’s standing on the dock, and he’s still throwing rocks at the ship, the one he’d used to wake Mikhail up resting in the sand beneath the boat.

He’s barefoot.

Mikhail looks at him for a moment, his hand still resting in his hair. He’s bent over with exhaustion, his head pounding from a twisted night of whiskey mouthfuls. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he mumbles, sitting up a little, sighing as he runs his hands over his face.

“I can go if you’re not up to it, I mean, I just figured—”

“Just get on the damned ship—”

“—what?”

“I said get your ass up here, Jesus Christ.”

Ian’s face lights up and he’s scrambling aboard the small fishing boat, Mikhail leaning over the side like he’s about to vomit. Ian comes up beside him, elbows on the railing.

“You look like shit,” Ian says, digging into the pocket of his trousers, coming up with a cigarette and an army grade brass lighter, which he flicks casually before actually putting the cigarette in his mouth and lighting it.

“Thanks.” Mikhail rolls his eyes, pushing off of the railing and straightening up. “You know how to rig sails?”

“Nope.”

“What the fuck’re you doing in a fishing town not knowing how to work a boat,” Mikhail grumbles, before he’s pulling out his own cigarette. He swipes the lighter out of Ian’s loose hand, cupping the end of his smoke as he lights it. “All right, well you can go down below and get the nets I got down there.” He tosses the lighter back and jabs his finger in the direction of the hatch leading down to the belly of the boat.

“I thought this was supposed to be a swimming lesson, not a fishing lesson _Mikhail_.” Ian gives him this incredulous look that Mikhail ignores completely.

“If you’re gonna be on the boat, you’re gonna help,” he says around the cigarette in his mouth. “You can get off if you’re just gonna dick around and do nothin’.”

For whatever insane reason, Ian clearly doesn’t want to get off the boat and he’s disappearing down the hatch eagerly in a matter of moments. Mikhail shakes his head as he slides into the cabin to grab himself a flask of whiskey, swishing a swig around in his mouth before he comes back out to start rigging nets.     

Ian brings up the extras, and he’s glad to be away from the reeking belly of the boat when Mikhail directs him to do something else. They don’t speak much as they work, Mikhail only opening his mouth to give direction. Halfway through Ian starts whistling and Mikhail is ready to punch him in the face. Ian’s lucky he’s pretty and that Mikhail could use a second hand on his shortened crew. A crew that now consists of just the two of them.

They’re out on the water in half an hour, Mikhail standing at the helm, Ian leaning over the side of the boat like some dumb kid. The sun has come out now, hot on their backs, and there’s nothing but blue blue blue and the smell of sea salt. It’s odd having someone else on the boat with him. Mikhail’s so used to it just being himself and the ocean, but Ian is good company he guesses. Ian’s shut up for now, keeping himself occupied, and he’s got strong hands, lifting things without breaking a sweat. Mikhail’s only known him for a few days but he supposes he could make a good partner.

Mikhail breaks the sails and throws the anchor once land is nothing but a thin line where the ocean meets the sky.

“Alright, get in the water,” Mikhail says after feeling the anchor hit the bottom. They’ve got a good fifty feet below them, clear straight down the bottom.

“What?” Ian says quickly, straightening up where he is at the railing, wiping the sea spray off his cheeks.

“You heard me,” Mikhail says, tired of repeating himself. Ian watches him with wide eyes as Mikhail crosses the deck to pick up the single circular buoy hanging on the side of the cabin. He tosses it into the water with ease, the rubber ring shaped tube connected to the boat by a thick rope. “What’re you looking at me like that for, you said you wanted a swimming lesson.”

Ian looks like it’s just dawning on him that that’s what they’re out here for.

“Are you gonna get in or what?”

“Just jump in? What part of _can’t swim_ don’t you get?”

Mikhail rubs his brow as Ian begins pulling at his waist coat.

“You’re lucky I gave you a goddamned bouy, kid, I barely got trousers when I learned.”

Ian rolls his eyes, pulling at his shirt and tossing it aside and Mikhail feels odd because Ian’s chest is beautiful and Mikhail can’t help staring at it. He’s sculpted like Adonis, milky skin freckled over his clavicles, his stomach flat, and a there’s a light bit of ginger hair that tracks down from his navel and disappears into his trousers. Mikhail chews on his lip, scratching the back of his head as Ian crosses to the side of the boat that the buoy is thrown over. Mikhail is sure he’s got nearly eight or nine years on Ian but he can’t help but stare at the way Ian’s back muscles move.

“Okay, okay, so um,” Ian is mumbling, his trousers rolled up to just under his knees, his hands bracing on the railing as he looks over at the buoy and the daunting ocean. She spits back at him, rocking the boat back and forth as it rests in her liquid arms. “So I just, I just jump in? And then what?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.” Mikhail can’t help but look amused as he leans against the helm watching Ian try to stall.

“Okay… _oh-kay_ , okay.” And then Ian is pulling himself up to sit on the railing, dangling his feet over the side of the boat, looking down at the deep water. Mikhail very well could have just brought them to the cove where the water was shallow and Ian couldn’t possibly drown, but that wouldn’t have been any fun. “Alright, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna jump, I’m gonna- _fuck!”_

Mikhail is laughing, watching Ian fall into the water after being pushed. He hits it with a splash and flails around, gulping air, looking like a little tomato floating around in the water. He grabs onto the buoy, sputtering as he clings to it like a cat, his knuckles going white, and he’s almost trying to climb up on top of it.

“Fuck you! Fuck you!” He’s yelling, his voice cracking as he tries to somehow get himself out of the water but there’s nowhere to go. Mikhail is laughing but Ian is not, and he’s trying to breathe steady, but the water is freezing and there’s fifty feet below him and he can’t fucking breathe.

He can’t _breathe_.

Something is wrong. Mikhail’s laughter dies at the wretched sound of Ian dry heaving in the water, his breath coming in quick hiccoughs. Mikhail leans over the railing to get a better view of him.

“I can’t do this, I can’t do this,” Ian is mumbling, his voice a mumbled whisper, sounding absolutely terrified as he clings to the rubber. His face is completely drained of color, his whole body shaking from head to toe. He can’t cling any tighter, but it feels like he’s going to drown.

Mikhail curses, pulling his shirt over his head, kicking off his boots before he’s clambering over the edge and diving into the water. The ocean is colder than he expected and he has to blow the water out of his mouth as he grabs the buoy under one arm, swinging his other arm around Ian’s middle, supporting him. Their size difference is obsolete in the water.

“Hey, hey, calm down, you’re gonna drag us under,” Mikhail is telling him, trying to get Ian to stop squirming. He’s looped his arms around Mikhail’s shoulders, the two of them cold cheek to cold cheek.

“I’ve got you kid, I’ve got you.”

Ian lets out a breath at that and Mikhail hikes them up a little, trying to stay afloat, leaning onto his back so he can keep both their heads above the water as he tries to get Ian to calm the fuck down.

“I’m sorry, alright. I’m sorry, just kick your legs, okay,” Mikhail murmurs and Ian doesn’t move at first, still clinging tightly to Mikhail’s burnt fisherman’s shoulders, but he gives in after a minute, starting to move his legs the way Mikhail is moving them. The panic begins to ebb and his fingers dig into Mikhail’s skin to keep himself from floating away, Mikhail the only safe place there on an open plain of blue.

“I still don’t get why you can’t swim, you live right next to the ocean,” Mikhail says as Ian’s breathing evens. He has become completely conscious of the way he’s touching the kid, the way his back feels under Mikhail’s fingers.

“I don’t like water,” Ian mumbles, shaking his head and Mikhail doesn’t question him because he sounds embarrassed.

“Clearly—yeah kick just like that, now look, let go of me with one arm, alright?” Mikhail says, moving his shoulder a little to try and get Ian to let go but the younger boy is squeezing Mikhail tightly, shaking his head, mumbling something about how he doesn’t want to. “You wanna go back up to the boat?” And Ian nods, at that, Mikhail feeling like he’s got a child in his arms as he kicks them backwards toward the bow.

Once they’re back on the ship, Mikhail gets Ian a blanket to wrap himself in while he opens the sails back up and steers them towards his usual netting spot, knowing he’s wasted half of his morning, but for some reason he doesn’t care. Every time he looks up at Ian staring over the water with his green eyes and freckled cheeks Mikhail doesn’t mind that he’s lost time. It doesn’t feel lost anyway.

Clouds begin to cluster again by the time they get to Mikhail’s regular spot, and he wishes he hadn’t gotten his trousers soiled with sea water. Ian helps him with the nets, and he’s quiet again, but not for very long this time.

“What language is that?” Ian asks him while they’re setting out a net on the port side.

“What?” Mikhail mumbles, looking up only to see that Ian is motioning towards his arms. Mikhail blinks at the array of tattoos he has inked into his skin. “Ukrainian,” he says. “And some Russian, but mostly Ukrainian.”

“You’re Ukrainian?”

“No shit.”

“That’s pretty far away.”

“17 hundred nautical miles.”

“You got family there?”

Mikhail jerks the knot to secure the net roughly, his brow pushed together deeply, forming a canyon made of skin.

Ian awaits an answer from him, but he doesn’t get one, Mikhail ignoring him completely and walking starboard to start setting out the second net.

“What are you doing all the way over here?” Ian asks, following Mikhail like a shadow.

Mikhail is silent, ever still.

“You’re not a talker are you?”

“Look kid, it’s really fucking quiet when you’re out here all by yourself—that’s what I’m used to. Shut up before I throw you overboard without a buoy this time.”

Ian gives him a look before he’s doing what Mikhail had showed him on the other net, securing it tightly.

The silence lasts a good while and Mikhail thinks maybe it’s going to be a good day, but by the time they pull in the first net of fish, Ian is talking again. Not asking questions, just talking, going on and on about a crazy old woman he’d met at the market, and then he’s talking about his friends, and then he’s telling Mikhail about the hills beside the barely fields and Mikhail can’t help but listen. Ian’s voice is steady and calm and when he stops to laugh he lights up the air around him and Mikhail feels like he could fall asleep to his story telling. He doesn’t bother telling Ian to stop.

“I’ll have to show you them, they’re beautiful,” Ian says, nodding, and Mikhail feels like he’d follow this stupid kid anywhere. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


	3. Pine Viridian

Ian comes by every day for the next four. They’ve come up with a little routine almost, Mikhail taking Ian out in the mornings to practice swimming and by midafternoon they’re out fishing, Ian weaving stories while Mikhail listens quietly. And it’s nice. Mikhail could spend the rest of his days like this, he’s sure. But of course, Ian is a restless little shit.

\--

_July 16, 1914; Larne Harbor, Larne, Northern Ireland_

“We’re not going fishing today,” he announces when Mikhail pops his head out from the cabin. He’s standing on the dock, a stone in hand. Mikhail is sure there are marks on the side of the boat from all the rocks Ian has lopped at it.

“Is that right?” Mikhail asks, coming to lean on the railing. Ian drops the stone and moves to fill his arms up with the basket and wool blanket that have been sitting at his feet. “You do realize fishing is how I make a living, right?”

“Yeah, but today’s special,” Ian says, holding up the basket for Mikhail to see. “S’my birthday.”

“Don’t you have friends?” Mikhail asks as he tugs cigarettes out of his pocket.

Ian laughs.

“All of them are boring,” he says, grinning ear to ear.

“And I’m not? You want to spend your birthday with—”

“Would you just come on? This shit is heavy.” And Ian is already making his way down the dock, barefoot as he always is like some sort of forest nymph.

Mikhail grumbles before he’s headed for the dock, stepping off the boat warily, still covered in sleep and wondering what the hell he’s doing following around some dumb kid at seven o’clock in the morning. He shoves his hands into his trouser pockets and trudges along behind Ian, who leads them out of the marina.

“You’re not even going to ask where we’re going?” Ian asks as they’re halfway down the road.

Mikhail gives him a tired look. “Where are we going?” He asks bemusedly.

“It’s a surprise.” Ian grins.

“ _That’s_ why I didn’t ask,” Mikhail grumbles, chewing on his bottom lip. The two of them are quiet and Mikhail can _feel_ Ian itching to say something, wanting to talk to him. The kid can’t shut up.

It’s like Mikhail’s the first person to ever fucking listen to him.

“Why don’t you wear shoes, kid?” Mikhail asks after a moment, trying to entertaining the buzzing boy beside him. Ian practically bursts, swinging the basket back and forth.

“Dunno, just don’t like them,” he says. “I wear them when my sister drags us to church at Christmas but that’s about it… You got a sister?”

Mikhail bites his tongue and nods.

“What’s her name?” Ian asks. The two of them are beginning to venture into the more rural part of town, the houses becoming farther and farther apart, fields of barley and wheat stretching behind them.

“Manya,” Mikhail says, and Ian can see the deep lines in Mikhail’s face as he murmurs the name. 

“Hey if you don’t want to answer me you don’t have to.”

Mikhail shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets again, wishing he’d actually had a chance to light that cigarette he’d been pulling at before Ian ushered him off the boat.

The two of them are quiet for a while again, Mikhail’s boots crunching the loose rocks on the dirt road, Ian’s basket slapping his hip with every swing.

“I ever tell you I fucking _hate_ surprises.”

Ian throws his head back to laugh this time and Mikhail can’t help but watch the way his eyes crinkle up when he smiles.

“Never would have guessed,” Ian says, still grinning, before he’s grabbing Mikhail’s sleeve and tugging him over to the other side of the road, leading him towards a patch of tall evergreens, reaching up towards the sky. They stumble through the wooded area, full with the smell of pine, until they’re tumbling out into a clearing, that turns out to be more of a valley. A field of long grass and wildflowers stretches forward until it reaches hills, hills that stretch into mountains, tons of them, the grass like waves on the ocean.

Ian grins, playing close attention to the way Mikhail’s face lights up as he looks out at so much green it almost hurts.

“Good surprise huh?” Ian asks, before he’s walking across grass that looks so soft Mikhail almost wants to take his shoes off too. He can only nod before he’s following along, Ian leading him up one of the hills. By the time they reach the top Mikhail realizes that it’s one of the tallest ones and they can see over the trees and into the town. Mikhail watches the people swarming like ants as Ian lays the blanket out beneath a lonesome tree on the hill and sits down.

“Come on, Grandpa,” Ian says as he pulls bread, cheese, and alcohol out from the basket.

“Not that old, kid.” Mikhail moves to sit himself beside Ian, pulling at his boots until he’s barefoot as well.

“You look like you could sprout a gray hair any minute, old man,” Ian says, a big shit eating grin on his face and Mikhail gives him a dirty look, snatching the whiskey Ian’s got right out of his hands.

“Twenty five doesn’t get you gray. And I don’t know why _you’re_ talking about hair color, y’fuckin’ mick, your head is like a giant beacon.”

Ian is laughing again and Mikhail wishes Ian could just laugh all the time.

“Took you five days to comment on my hair, it’s a world record,” Ian says and Mikhail is contemplating if twenty five is too old to want to kiss a red headed leach from Larne who won’t leave you the fuck alone.

“Not surprised, it’s hard to ignore,” Mikhail chuckles into the mouth of the whiskey bottle and he almost spills it all over himself when Ian punches him in the arm.

“Shut the fuck up alright, I thought I liked you.”

“No one likes me, tough guy, s’only a matter of time before you stop coming for those bullshit swimming lessons.”

Ian punches him again and this time Mikhail _does_ spill the whiskey. He curses like a sailor as Ian laughs, big belly laughs that only a child could make as Mikhail yanks to unbutton his cotton shirt before his chest gets sticky.

“You’re a fuckin’ dick,” Mikhail says, capping the flask and tossing it aside, reaching for the bread instead. Ian couldn’t spill that.

Ian just laughs and grabs the whiskey bottle. He keeps eyeing Mikhail’s chest and the tattoos there but Mikhail isn’t going to tell him what they mean and Ian isn’t going to bother asking.

“So it’s your birthday,” Mikhail says, placing a bit of the bread in his mouth.

“I’m assuming you’re not going to sing me Happy Birthday,” Ian snorts.

“I don’t sing.”

“Oh c’mon, you’ve got to know some old sailing songs or something.”

Mikhail hesitates this time, knowing the cost of giving Ian such incriminating information

“I do,” he finally grumbles.

“See, I knew it!” Ian grins. “You should sing one.”

“In your dreams, kid.” 

“It’s my birthday! You didn’t even get me anything, the least you could do is sing me a song.”

“Yeah, you didn’t give me prior notice about your fucking birthday, and besides I’ve been giving you free swimming lessons, that’s a gift in itself.”

“Doesn’t count. Entirely separate situation.”

Mikhail rolls his eyes and decides to disengage himself from this part of the conversation. Ian goes on to explain the significance of a good birthday gift while he spreads goat cheese onto bread and places apple slices in his mouth, the two of them passing the whiskey bottle like it’s some sort of holy water.

The conversation drifts as it always does and eventually Ian has turned to telling Mikhail about his family, whom of which Mikhail has heard about before. He’s pretty sure he knows enough about Ian’s family to pretend they’re his own.

“Fiona’s probably making a pie or something and _they’ll_ sing me happy birthday and it’ll be way better than this let down of a picnic,” Ian says, the two of them having laid back on the blanket, stretched out, their arms up behind their heads. Their elbows brush occasionally and Mikhail isn’t sure what to do with himself.

“You brought this upon yourself,” he says with a stupid smile.

“Yeah whatever, guess that just makes sense, Fiona’s food is way better than anything you could ever imagine.”

“She’s like your mum then?”

“Yeah,” Ian says, opening his mouth like he’s going to start talking about his real mother or something but he falters and falls short. He decides quickly to change the subject and turn the conversation on Mikhail. “What about your family? Other than Manya.”

Mikhail chews on his bottom lip, staring up at the gray sky. Clouds are beginning to roll in, big angry ones, rumbling, and Mikhail is sure there are big angry clouds in his stomach as well. He doesn’t want to think about Manya. Manya and her beautiful hair and bruised cheeks.

“What about them?” Mikhail asks.

“What are they like?”

“They’re people,” Mikhail says. “They have faces. They do people things.”

“Stop being sarcastic, you ass.”

“You stop being a nosy little shit!”

The conversation comes to a halt again and the two of them are left staring up at the angry sky, their bare heels digging into the dirt just off of the blanket.

“Hey Mikhail?”

Mikhail looks over and he’s suddenly face to face with Ian, who’s turned on his side now. Ian is just a breath away and Mikhail can feel himself start to panic. “What?” He musters.

“How come you don’t like talking about your fam-“

And suddenly there’s a loud grumble from the sky, followed by a flash of light and the two of them are up on their feet in two seconds flat, no time to put shoes on. They gather up their dishes and wrappings as the rain begins, light sprinkles dotting the backs of their shirts. Ian hauls the basket up and bundles the blanket below his arm just before the rain begins to come down in buckets.

“Fuck!” Ian says, but he’s got a grin on his upturned face as he looks right up into the rain.

Mikhail stares at him for a moment, his face damp, hair sticking to his forehead.

“You’re fucking insane!” he calls over the roar of thunder. Ian laughs and decides to dump the basket and the blanket beneath the tree they’d been sitting under, yelling that he’d get them later before he’s taking off down the hill. Mikhail stumbles to follow him, once again chasing after this fiery barefooted boy.

 Mud laps at their feet as they slide down the hill, the grass eating at their ankles. The rain gets in their eyes and makes things glassy and the smell of petrichor fills their noses and it feels like they’re dancing. Ian is laughing and it’s music and Mikhail can’t help but laugh along with him. It’s almost like they’re out on the ocean. Mikhail can’t say he’s ever felt this good on land. The sea is his home, but it feels almost like Ian has brought her along with him, the ocean trailing behind him.

They get through the small forest, splashing out onto the road, their feet picking up the wet dirt. Ian calls something but Mikhail can’t hear him and he doesn’t think it really matters. The thunder is loud on their tails, puddle water cold on their skin, the rain like liquid laughter, honey on their backs. The road stretches fourth like a great vein, ending on the strip of gray horizon, the two of them flanked by wet fields. They’re running and running and then Ian is turning around and grabbing him, leaning in close again so Mikhail can hear him.

“That’s my house, you want to come in?” He calls over the singing of the rain. Mikhail looks off down the road that Ian is pointing to, a small house and a barn sitting idle in front of some sort of field. He blinks the water out of his eyes before turning back to Ian, imagining him sitting at a table, surrounded by a smiling family, singing happy goddamned birthday, the candles like little stars in his eyes and Mikhail can’t. He can’t ruin that.

“No, I’ve got to get back to the boat!” He says loudly and Ian frowns before nodding, pulling away. Mikhail misses the feel of Ian’s hands on his shoulders already. What he would have gave to push forward and press their wet lips together, he doesn’t know. Anything.

“I’ll be by tomorrow!” Ian smiles before he’s taking off down the road towards his house.

“Hey Ian!” Mikhail calls after him, watching him turn on his heel again, standing there a shadow in the rain, drenched in melancholy but smiling. “Happy birthday!”

Ian’s smile widens infinitely and he waves at Mikhail before heading for the light coming from his warm home. Mikhail stands there, watching with soft eyes as Ian grows small and disappears, surefooted and beautiful and Mikhail wishes he could somehow look away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


	4. All Maroon

_July 20th, 1914; The open ocean, just off the coast of Larne_

“You should come,” Ian says from his perch next to the helm. His legs are crossed, trousers rolled up to his knees, bare feet, smile smile smile for miles. “And don’t tell me you don’t drink, because I know you Mikhail. I know you like the back of my hand.”

“You don’t.”

“Okay, maybe I don’t but I’ve got a pretty good handle on your drinking habits. I also know you like going to that specific tavern. Finn says he’s seen you in there.”

“Finn?”

“The barkeep.”

“Of course you know the barkeep—“

“—I know everyone,” Ian finishes before Mikhail can beat him to it. But it’s true, Ian seems to know every single soul living in this godforsaken town. “Just come, Mickey, please.”

Mikhail pauses, squinting, wondering if he’d heard right.

“Did you just call me—”

“ _Please!”_ Ian wails dramatically, wilting like a fucking marigold on his throne of crates.

“Jesus Christ, you’re gonna break your fucking neck doing that,” Mikhail says. “Fine, I’ll go if you’ll quit acting like a goddamned child.”

Ian gives him a look.

“Well, you’re particularly touchy today, Mikhail.”

Mikhail almost wishes he’d called him that name again.

“Quit your whining, at least I’m fucking coming.”

Ian sighs, continuing to wilt dramatically until he realizes that Mikhail really isn’t paying attention to him, and he sits up, grinding his teeth together until they’re pulling into the harbor and Ian is eagerly going through the motions to dock the boat, proud of his new skill. He’s off the ship as soon as he can be and Mikhail is following along quietly, shoving his hands in his pockets. He sometimes wonders if Ian even likes being on the boat with how quick he always is to get back down onto land.

It makes him wonder why Ian even bothers visiting him.

The two of them roll through the marina and up into the town, Ian steadfast as he heads for the tavern, Mikhail a shadow behind him. He’s disengaged as usual until Ian turns around and begins a conversation with him, moving to walk beside him rather than in front of him.

Mikhail notices as he walks that he’d forgotten to pull his boots on and he is now walking without shoes, barefoot just as Ian is. He doesn’t know what to think of that so he ignores it and continues listening to Ian. They reach the tavern and Ian gets Mikhail to come set up camp at a table with him, the two of them knocking back whiskey until Mikhail decides to get himself a familiar Vodka, only to want to spit it out.

“This is shit,” he says, finishing the glass off.

“Oh no aren’t you all high and mighty, have to be picky about your alcohol.”

Mikhail shakes his head.

“If you were bottle fed the Vodka in Ukraine, you’d know what I was talking about.”

Ian leans forward a little, wondering if Mikhail would continue about his childhood. He doubts it but he isn’t going to take any chances. He wants to soak up as much information about this man as he can muster.

“What’re you looking at me like that for?”

“Nothin’,” Ian mumbles.

“You’re drunk,” Mikhail says with a laugh. He’s used to being able to drink people under the table; it’s a pretty common thing for him. But Ian has gotten drunk so fast it’s almost comical.

“ _No,”_ Ian mutters, waving his hand. “If I were drunk I’d—well I’d probably be… kissing you right now, probably, yeah.”

Mikhail looks up at him abruptly, watching Ian smile softly, his cheeks flushed a rosy pink, probably from the alcohol. Hopefully from the alcohol. Mikhail’s stomach does things he didn’t know it could and he doesn’t need this right now. Not from a barely eighteen year old light weight.

Ian laughs when he realizes Mikhail is giving him a look.

“I’m only kidding Mickey, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t waste my first kiss on your gross ass.”

There it is. That name again. Ian’s the only person to ever call him that.

“First kiss, huh?”

Ian nods. “Pretty sad yeah? Eighteen and never been kissed!”

“Not so bad,” Mikhail says. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. Mikhail had never been kissed, not properly anyway. Not a real kiss. Not one that counted. He’d never wanted to give one that counted. But right now, with Ian Gallagher drunk off his ass, starry eyed and red cheeked, he wants to. God he wants to.

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” Ian mumbles and launches their conversation somewhere else. Their drinks keep coming and soon enough even Mikhail is fairly drunk and they’re being kicked out of the tavern, the two of them stumbling into the street, Mikhail supporting a giggling Ian on his arm.

The two of them are polar opposites when they’re drunk, Ian bright like sunshine and Mikhail even quieter than he had been before like someone’s stitched up his mouth. But Ian doesn’t seem to notice, laughing hysterically as he leans on Mikhail.

“No no no, I’ll walk you back to the boat,” Ian insists stupidly, nuzzling into Mikhail’s neck and Mikhail is too drunk and too smitten to say no.

The night is beginning to clear up, the sky spattered with the beginnings of stars like white paint or sea spray. Ian is soft on Mikhail’s side and the smell of salt is clinging to them as they toddle onto the docks, padding towards the boat, the dock pillars tall oceanic trees.

By the time they make it, Ian has stopped blabbering and it’d be completely silent if not for the waves beneath the docks, the ocean murmuring to them. Mikhail tries to pull away from Ian so he can climb back onto the ship and pass out, but Ian is clinging to him still, ready to fall over.

“You wanna just stay here, I dunno if you can make it home all by yourself,” Mikhail mumbles, his arm stuck around Ian’s waist still, feeling Ian’s ribs expand as he breathes.

Ian doesn’t get any words out and just nods, hiccoughing as Mikhail helps him up onto the boat, the two of them nearly falling into the black water. The boat rocks beneath them, and it’s suddenly very hard to stand up. Mikhail tries to keep Ian balanced, pulling him towards the cabin, but the ocean pushes them over and suddenly Mikhail is tipping back first into the wall, just barely keeping himself upright, Ian falling against him. And just like that, they’re pushed together, bodies pressing, Ian’s sharp warm breath on Mikhail’s face.

Ian smiles a little, that smile that makes Mikhail’s breath hitch. Their faces are too close, noses brushing and Ian’s hand comes up to touch Mikhail’s cheek.

“Ian,” Mikhail says, his voice full of warning, because he knows what Ian’s going to do. He’s beginning to regret taking Ian onto the boat.

“Come on Mickey, eighteen and never been kissed,” Ian mumbles and he’s biting his lip, Mikhail’s chest beginning to tighten, his legs feeling like they might give beneath him. Ian’s hands find the edge of Mikhail’s shirt and he isn’t laughing anymore. His fingers slide beneath it to touch Mikhail’s lower belly, fingers gently circling his navel, trailing through the dark tracks of hair that disappear down into his trousers.

He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t.

But Mikhail gets another look of Ian’s big green eyes and god, he can’t help himself.

Mikhail pushes forward, their lips coming together in one wave of incoherency, and Mikhail would have blamed it on the rock of the boat but there was no denying it was voluntary. Ian tastes like sweet whiskey and tobacco and his mouth is rose petal soft, satin and sea glass. Mikhail’s hands come up to hold the back of Ian’s head, digging into his fire hair, pressing their faces closer, wanting every warm inch of him. It takes Ian a moment to catch up, but then he’s eagerly parting his lips, his jaw flexing beneath Mikhail’s thumb as he turns his head. Ian’s hands grip at Mikhail’s clothing and their breath is hot on each other’s faces, each of them feeling the need to be impossibly closer to each other, Mikhail sucking on Ian’s bottom lip, nipping at it, their teeth clashing violently and suddenly Ian is pulling away from him, their wet mouths hitting the midnight summer air. His eyes are dark, turned from emerald to deep forest green. Mikhail can see the way his chest is flushed beneath his shirt and it isn’t from the alcohol.

Mikhail gives up fighting.

A heartbeat, their gaze meeting in communal comprehension and consent and Ian is suddenly pulling Mikhail off the wall, the two of them fumbling backwards as they grapple at each other’s clothing. Mikhail pushes their mouths together again, hungry for another kiss, a kiss he’s never had before, one that is warm and full of fire and he _wants_ it He wants it this time. He’s wanted it for forever now and it’s the first kiss he’s ever wanted.

 _“Fuck,”_ Mikhail gasps into Ian’s mouth as Ian palms the front of his bulging trousers. He fumbles to pull the buttons on Ian’s waistcoat, getting it off his shoulders before going for his shirt. Ian’s free hand is doing the same and the two of them are tumbling backwards. Mikhail trips as the back of his knees hit one of the small raised decks, fit for making room beneath the boat. His back hits the hardwood just as Ian gets his shirt off, tossing it aside, the two of them bare chested and sweaty, their skin mottled red. Ian moves to lean over Mikhail, their chests pressing together, Mikhail’s hands coming up to run over Ian’s back, feeling the way his muscles move, his shoulder blades like angel wings and Mikhail doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He’s sure Ian’s fingers leave bruises as he pulls on Mikhail’s trousers, neither of them needing to bother with shoes, and then Mikhail is in his small clothes and he’s never felt so fucking… _okay._

He feels okay.

A smile stretches across his mouth as he pushes on Ian’s square farmer’s chest and gets him on his back, shuffled up so he’s fully stretched across the raised deck, Mikhail above him. Mikhail’s mouth leaves wet marks as he kisses Ian’s skin, sucking on his neck and kissing the curve of his clavicles, the lake of his sternum, the soft hills of his pectorals and then down his abdominal muscles like a marigold field and god is he _beautiful_. Mikhail gets the rest of his trousers down, pulling at his small clothes, completely undressing him. His hands run over the cliffs of Ian’s hip bones and he feels like he might fall off of them and drown in the ocean of Ian’s body.

Ian’s breath catches, his chest expanding as Mikhail runs his hand over Ian’s cock, lifting it firmly and taking it into his mouth. He works him with ease, square calloused fingers running up and down his base, Mikhail’s mouth full with the salty taste of the rest of him. He hasn’t done this since last summer when he stayed in Scotland but it comes back to him quickly, his tongue flat against the underside of Ian’s cock as he sucks, hollowing his cheeks. Ian moans luxuriously and his thigh muscles tense on either side of Mikhail’s head, brushing Mikhail’s ears. His hands have fallen to pull on Mikhail’s dark hair, tangled in it. Mikhail is surrounded by Ian, nothing but Ian and only Ian and he has no reason to protest. Ian is Adonis and Mikhail wants to give everything to him.

Mikhail only gets a few moments with Ian’s cock filling his mouth before Ian is pulling on his shoulders, grabbing for him to come back upwards. As soon as he does, Ian is pressing their mouths together again, pushing at Mikhail’s small clothes and tossing them aside, their naked bodies sliding together evenly. Mikhail lays an arm on the deck above Ian’s head, the other braced beside him as their tongues wrap together. Ian’s hands find the tattoos on Mikhail’s ribs and trace them, his lips moving to press against the ones on Mikhail’s pectorals, the muscles swollen from long hours on the boat. Mikhail’s breath hitches, and he pulls his head back as Ian moves his broad fingers down Mikhail’s tattooed abdomen over Mikhail’s cock. Ian’s mouth finds Mikhail’s again, and Ian is rolling them over, Mikhail beneath him, his back to the wood.

Ian shoves his fingers in his mouth to wet them and Mikhail’s legs loop around Ian’s waist, thighs against hips. Mikhail guides him, back arching as fingers fill him up and time seems to be moving quickly, Ian suddenly sliding into him. It burns like hot fire, Mikhail’s breath escaping him, his teeth digging into Ian’s shoulders, but the burn is refreshing and his stomach swirls. His fingers grip at Ian’s skin, Ian’s breath on his neck as he starts to move.

They rock with the boat and Mikhail has never felt this way, never before in his life, his face buried into Ian’s neck, holding onto him like he’s a rock in the water and Mikhail is going to drown. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, and everything is Ian. He smells like fresh grass and sea salt and his skin is evergreen and rosebuds and Mikhail can’t keep up, he won’t ever be able to keep up, and he knows it. But it doesn’t matter.

At that moment, Ian isn’t a red blooded boy from Ireland and Mikhail doesn’t live lonely on the sea. They are no one, and everyone at the same time. They’re safe. They’re _safe._

Their chests flush and their breathing quickens, and they’re eagerly pulling at each other and then Ian’s forehead is pressed against Mikhail’s, and there are green eyes. Green eyes just like the hills and Mikhail can’t look away, their noses pressing, lips brushing. Every breath Mikhail breathes out, Ian breathes it in. He wants to tell Ian things he’s never told anyone before. He wants to open himself up and keep Ian there in his chest, nestled in the space between the curving ivory of his ribcage and his fat swollen heart.

Ian hits the good spot and Mikhail loses everything, his blood running gold. And then they’re crashing, everything swelling up like a storm. Mikhail’s orgasm hits him harpoon style, right in the gut, and Ian isn’t far behind him, both of them collapsing in a pile of sweaty debris.

Like falling leaves.

Ian moves so he’s lying beside Mikhail on the raised deck. The air is cold and they stay as close to each other as they can. The clouds have gone away fully now, the stars out, the moon wide and weary and it’s Mikhail’s favorite thing, when the water is flat and the stars reflect across it like the boat is sitting on a mirror and it feels like you’re floating in space because you can’t tell what’s water and what’s sky.

They stare for a long time, until their breathing evens.

“Hey, Mickey?” Ian’s voice is soft.

Mikhail looks at him, feeling sober and inflated and absolutely glorious.

“You’re not… going anywhere right? You’re staying here? With me?”

Mikhail takes a breath.

“No, I’m not going anywhere,” he says and Ian lays back down, relieved but something sits in the bottom of Mikhail’s gut because it’s a lie. He isn’t staying; he _can’t_ stay.

Mikhail passes like the seasons. Ian will only ever be a single summer.

 

\--

Mikhail wakes up on his side in his hammock, the green cloth folding around him like the baby sling his mother had made out of bed sheets.

You don’t realize how small your bed is until someone sleeps in it with you.

Mikhail’s face is buried in red hair, his right arm caught beneath a freckled neck, his left draped over a pale torso. Ian’s nose is pressed into Mikhail’s shoulder, his arm curled against Mikhail’s chest. Their legs are tangled, Ian’s on top of Mikhail’s hip, Mikhail’s between Ian’s thighs.

The hammock swings slowly.

A wave of regret passes over him for a small moment and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. This isn’t okay.

There’s a sleeping angel against him and he doesn’t know how easy it’s going to be keeping from plucking his feathers.

And Ian stirs and there is a brief moment of intense fear, Mikhail waiting silently for Ian to jump away from him; to leave the boat and never be seen again, but he just looks up at Mikhail with sleepy hollow eyes, his mouth curling in a smile. Ian doesn’t say anything, just sort of looks at him for a moment before turning his head back into Mikhail’s shoulder, leaning into him, tightening his grip like he isn’t going to ever let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


	5. Sable

Two weeks pass, time dancing by like the Russian ballet. Ian continues to come every morning. Sometimes he brings a picnic basket and the two of them will walk the mile down the dusty road to their tree on the side of the hill and sometimes they’ll skip fishing all together and go swimming in the cove beneath the cliffs and sometimes they sit in the afternoons while the sun is going down and pass a cigarette back and forth in comfortable silence.

A war has begun across Europe, creeping slowly towards them, but neither of them mind.

Mikhail has gotten used to the sound of Ian’s feet padding on the boat. He’s begun to wake up before Ian’s incessant rock throwing, but not get out of bed until he hears it. He feels odd when Ian’s voice isn’t filling his ears and when Ian’s skin isn’t brushing his. He doesn’t drink unless Ian’s with him. He doesn’t sail unless Ian’s with him. He doesn’t do much at all unless Ian’s with him.

 And he’s stopped wearing shoes altogether.

\-- 

_August 1st, 1914; Lamb’s Head Cove, Larne, Northern Ireland_

“You comin’?!”

“Jesus Christ, give me a minute!” Ian calls from the top of the cliff. Mikhail can barely see him from his place on the bank. The small cove is crescent shaped, the cliffs tall and dark on one end, muddy banks on the other. It’s small enough to swim across and deep enough to jump into.

“You better not bitch out on me, this was _your_ idea, remember!”

Ian had come to him that morning and requested, in a feat of bravery, to jump from the cliff. Ian’s determination had only strengthened when Mikhail had called him a pansy.

Ian falters on the cliff for a moment and Mikhail is afraid he won’t do it, but this is _Ian_. The kid who had nearly drowned to prove a point, the kid who runs through the rain while it thunders, the kid who doesn’t wear shoes unless you hold him down and put them on his feet. Mikhail doesn’t know why he ever doubted him in the first place.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Ian shouts as he steps off the cliff. Air rushes past and the whole world flies in a blur, his stomach plummeting, and then he’s surrounded by cold and tiny firefly bubbles. It takes his body a moment to register where he is, and for a second he floats five feet under, watching the world submerged in blue.

Mikhail watches as Ian disappears under the water and then pops up a moment later, sputtering. His triumphant smile lights up the whole world.

“It’s fucking _cold!”_ Ian announces, pushing his hair out of his face and starting to make his way towards Mikhail, close enough to see him properly, but not close enough to touch the sandy bottom.

Mikhail laughs at him, sitting there in the mud, in nothing but his trousers, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. He had jumped first. “You say that every goddamned time,” he says.

“Yeah yeah.” Ian shakes his head, wading into the shallows, enough to stand with his head still out of the water. “You coming in or what?” he calls, pushing his wet hair off his forehead.

Mikhail waves his cigarette. “I’m smoking.”

“You know, Mickey, there’s this thing called _putting it out_? It’s real easy, you just press the burning end of the cigarette into the ground repeatedly—ah!”

Ian tries to jump out of the way as Mikhail comes crashing into the water after him, but Ian ends up with a face full of water anyway.

“You’re a little bitch,” Mikhail says, swimming towards him, Ian laughing hysterically as he kicks himself backwards, away from Mikhail.

“Says the man who takes it up the—“ Ian is cut off as Mikhail jumps on his head, shoving him under. Ian grabs hold of Mikhail’s leg and takes him with him, the two of them tumbling beneath the water, trying to hold each other under until Ian is pulling away, gasping for air as he surfaces.

“What were you gonna say? Huh? Somethin’ about you being a _little bitch?”_ Mikhail laughs as he pops up and Ian rolls his eyes, reaching forward to push Mikhail’s head under, the two of them launching into another wrestling match, bruising each other as they swallow water. It takes them closer and closer to shore, until they’re on land completely, rolling in the mud. Shoves turn to punches and suddenly they’re beating each other raw.

When they finally tucker out, they lay side by side on the bank, Mikhail’s lip split, Ian’s cheek bruised, lazy smiles on their faces.

Mud dries on cracked skin and the two of them are dashing back into the water, digging it out of their hair and from under their fingernails, cleaning it off of each other’s backs.

“You made me put out a perfectly fucking good cigarette,” Mikhail mumbles as they climb back onto the bank. He reaches for his tobacco and rolling paper, Ian snatching Mikhail’s shirt from the tree he’d hung it up in.

“No one made you do anything, you were the one who put it out,” Ian laughs, slinging the shirt on. It smells like Mikhail, like the sea. It’s a little tight on him, but he slides it on easy, burying his nose in the collar briefly.

“Yeah yeah.”

“What’s this?”

Mikhail looks up from the place he’s sat himself down, rolling a cigarette on his thigh. He doesn’t have time to snatch the small square paper from Ian’s hands.

The whole world stops.

“Is this your sister?” He questions, looking at the picture curiously. He flips it over, Mikhail getting a glance of the front, a woman sitting with two children. “It’s in Ukrainian,” Ian mumbles dumbly as he tries to read the back. He flips it over again, studying the people. The woman is beautiful, swanlike, her back curved, her smile golden. One child sits in her lap, the other bundled in her arms. The one in her lap looks startlingly like Mikhail and Ian smiles. “You keep a baby picture of yourself in your shirt pocket?” He asks, laughing. “Your mums really pretty, y’know... Jesus, you’re so fucking small. I guess that didn’t change.” He looks up at Mikhail, expecting a sour remark, barking swears.

Mikhail has his head hung and is staring at the mud. 

“Mickey?” Ian mumbles, something sounding wrong in his voice and he doesn’t know why but he suddenly feels like everything is falling.

Mikhail doesn’t know what to say. He licks his lips.

For some reason Ian doesn’t think this is Mikhail’s mother.

“Love… with love?” Ian mumbles, struggling to read the lettering on the back, Mikhail having taught him some Ukrainian here and there but he doesn’t know nearly enough to decipher it. His heart has begun to race.

Mikhail hasn’t moved.

“With love what? Goddamnit, Mikhail, what the fuck does it say? Who is this? Why aren’t you talking to me?” Ian’s voice raises to a shout. His chest feels heavy. The woman in the photograph is staring right at him

Mikhail doesn’t care about anything anymore. It’s over. It’s all over. The summer has ended.

“It says _From Svetlana, Yevgeny, and Alexi, with love_ ,” Mikhail says. There is nothing in his face, his voice empty.

Ian shakes his head not understanding. “I don’t... who are they?”

“My family.”

Mikhail’s voice is barely above a whisper.

“Your family? What, like your mum and siblings? I didn’t… know you had brothers…” Ian trails off, trying to hang onto something, anything, not letting his world shatter yet. He needs this, he _needs_ Mikhail.

There is a moment of suspended silence. Waves lap at the bank. The day is beautiful.

“Svetlana is my wife,” Mikhail says, as calm as sea before storm. His voice is steady. “Yevgeny and Alexi are my sons.”

Ian becomes very still. The shirt feels too tight. Mikhail still isn’t looking at him. The woman in the photograph stares at him.

Mikhail’s _wife_ stares at him.

When Mikhail finally does stand up Ian has already sat the photograph down neatly beside the rest of their clothing, is folding the shirt up.

“Don’t.”

Ian looks at him. He swallows.

“Don’t what?”

“Just… just don’t.”

Ian looks at him and his eyes don’t seem green anymore.

And then he’s running, running away and taking the hills with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


	6. Halcyon

Something changes in him, something _breaks_. He doesn’t know what happened, just that he’d sat on that bank until the mud had soaked through to his small clothes and he now has mosquito bites on his back that look like constellations. He doesn’t care. His head doesn’t quite work anymore. Every time he tries to think, tries to do _anything_ , its Ian there in the front of his mind and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He’s been drinking since that night and hasn’t stopped.

He still hasn’t put on shoes.

The sea makes him want to vomit and he doesn’t know why.

Something is _broken._

\-- 

_August 10th, 1914; The Black Rose Tavern, Larne, Northern Ireland_

The glass sounds like thunder as it slides across the bar. Mikhail downs half in an instant, leaning against the counter in front of him, staring at the grain of the wood beneath his forearms. 

The tavern is quiet save for a few men down the bar, speaking halfheartedly to the bartender about the war that has slowly been settling itself across the world. Word’s been going around about the draft, but Mikhail is far from home. It doesn’t matter to him.

Until it matters.

“July 16th is what I’ve heard, they called it the other day,” says one of the men, a bearded sailor with his meaty hands wrapped around a pint. Mikhail can’t remember his name.

“That MacAullife boy then,” murmurs the bartender.

The sailor nods.

“And the Gallagher’s son, right?” says another man, a local clearly, with stormy Irish eyes.

 Mikhail lifts his head.

“What? Which one?” asks the bartender, dropping his rag on the bar.

Mikhail racks his mind for Ian’s birthday, his chest tightening all of a sudden and now he cares. He cares about the war. It is, in that instant, the central thought in his mind.

“The redheaded one, right? Just turned eighteen.”

Everything slowly drifts and sinks and settles, and nothing matters. Not the war. Not anything. Just red hair and freckles like stars across cheeks.

He leaves the tavern after tossing his payment on the bar, his pint left half empty. The dusty earth of the road outside sticks to his sore feet.

Mikhail feels nothing. He doesn’t let himself comprehend, doesn’t let himself think. Not about gathering Ian up and taking him far away, across the sea. Not about Ian being eighteen years old, just a _boy._ Not about the bright being torn from his eyes.

But then he _does_ think and it’s unbearable.

He stops in the middle of the road for a moment, having walked a good ways in the direction of the marina already. He stares down the road that stretches out of the village and into farmland, Ian’s home somewhere at the end. There is a moment of grinding teeth and thick thoughts before Mikhail is running.

The road seems much longer than it had before. It stretches on forever, stones digging into his feet, the air biting at his cheeks and turning them pink. When he finally comes to the road with Ian’s house at the end and small grain of sand in the existence of the universe, he stops, staring down at it. He can see it there, far down, a small stone house with a faded barn hulking behind it and fields behind that. The sky rises up above it, swelling up with heavy stars, making the house look like nothing at all. Candles or maybe a fire lights up the inside, leaving flecks of gold in the distance.

He wonders not of Ian’s birthday, his family singing happily around him, presenting cakes and presents and warm sweet hugs. Instead, he thinks of them silent, solemn empty embraces of grief and longing and fear, Ian’s eyes dark, the house with shadows in the corners because Ian has been forced to sign his soul away.

Mikhail suddenly feels like he shouldn’t be here. This isn’t his place. If Ian had wanted to see Mikhail, he would have come found him.

But Mikhail doesn’t know if he can take the chance of Ian not coming. Of Ian taking off for war. Of never seeing him again.

He begins to walk towards the house. The wind blows heavy over the plain, pushing his hair like the grass on the hills. The house gets larger and larger and he is both full of dread and hope but still, the emptiness sits behind it, solitary.

He stands at the door for a good minute before he knocks.

A woman answers. Her eyes are tired, her long dark hair pulled back in a braid that she wears over her shoulder. A muddled name floats around in Mikhail’s head, something Ian had told him once. _Fiona._

“Well you don’t have to wake the whole house up, Ian--” she stops, looking at him. “Oh you’re not… who are you? It’s four in the morning…”

“I’m looking for your brother.”

“Which one?” She asks, leaning in the doorway. A small child appears behind her, his small hands clasping around her calf as he announces in a small voice that he can’t sleep.

“Ian,” Mikhail says, the name rolling off his tongue for the first time in far too long. It falls from his mouth so easily it’s nearly painful, turning everything blue.

Her face darkens and she reaches down to scoop up the child at her feet.

“He’s in the barn,” she says, resting the child at her hip, motioning out the door towards the old crooked building. “We can’t get him to come inside.”

Mikhail nods, looking between her and the child. Another person has appeared behind her, a sleepy looking girl, her hair red like Ian’s and she gives him a confused look. The three pairs of eyes on him begin to make Mikhail’s skin crawl and he escapes as fast as he can, headed for the barn, the grass soft and wet beneath his feet. He can feel them watching him the whole way.

The barn door opens with a shriek, the old hinges protesting. The mouth opens up into a dark belly, the room looming above his head, the loft jutting out like a cliff. He stands in the doorway looking down at his shadow casted in length on the floor.

“Go away,” says a voice from deep within the bowels of the barn. “I already told you, I’m not hungry.”

“Well it’s a damn good thing I don’t have food then,” Mikhail says.

Silence settles in tatters. The wind sings melancholy songs outside.

“I’m in the loft,” Ian says finally and Mikhail steps forward, letting out a breath of relief he had forgotten he’d been holding. The ladder into the loft is crooked and it’s hard to see, but Mikhail makes it up without falling, climbing onto hay. Mikhail can see him now, sitting beside the small window at the back of the barn. He shimmies across the small space, placing himself on the other side of the window.

Seeing Ian again makes something blossom in his chest. He doesn’t know how to describe it, just that it’s heavy and painful.

Ian doesn’t look at him, just stares out the window. They sit in hushed death.

“You’re going away, kid,” Mikhail says after a moment, trying to muster up words he doesn’t have.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ian mumbles bitterly, leaning his head against the wooden wall. Moonlight comes in through the slats and leaves lines of blue across his skin.

“It does,” Mikhail says. “It does matter.”

“Don’t you have a wife to go home to?”

Mikhail shakes his head. Svetlana looms at the back of his mind.

“Goddamnit, Ian. I haven’t seen her in a year,” he says quietly. “And I won’t see her for another six months after this.”

“So what, you just make it a habit of going around and _fucking_ people why you’re away and then just coming home like it’s nothing? Kissing her like you hadn’t kissed anyone else?” Ian bursts, his fist clenched, knuckles flushing.

“It’s not like that,” Mikhail says defensively, even though it is, really. It is.

“You’re pathetic,” Ian spits, managing this strangled sort of laugh that scares both of them.

Mikhail looks at the floor of the barn. This is all very new to him. Something is spinning somewhere in his chest like a music box ballerina. His mouth tastes like iron.

Ian is right.

Mikhail kisses people in Scotland and England and France and Spain and comes home to Ukraine every few months and forgets about them, kisses his wife and hugs his children like nothing ever happened. He never remembers their names. They’re only lips and thighs and easy smiles. They’re the boy from Edinburgh, the boy from Provence, the boy from Portsmouth, the boy from Naples. They have faces but no names. They have mouths but no voices. They have bodies but no smell. He remembers their eyes or their hair but not their sisters’ names.

Ian is different.

He couldn’t possibly be the boy from Larne. He’s _Ian_. Ian who smells like wheat and rain water and cloves. Ian who runs like he has fire at his heels. Ian who sings sea shanties and throws stones and smiles like he’s got the sun in his mouth. Mikhail remembers every freckle on every inch of skin. He could tell you Ian’s favorite smell, the color of the bottoms of his feet. He could tell you the exact way Ian walks in perfect detail. He knows more about Ian than he does about himself.

Ian isn’t going to be the boy from Larne.

“You’re leaving, Ian,” Mikhail says, again.

“I know I’m leaving.”

Mikhail swallows.

“Then why aren’t you fucking acting like it!” he snaps, looking up at him.

“Why aren’t I acting like it?” Ian manages to bark out another drowning laugh. “You don’t know anything, Mikhail. You don’t know if I’ve been acting like it or not. You know _nothing_. Because you don’t _care._ You’re here for a few months, you find someone to mess around with, and then you leave. You’re just not fucking used to having people leave you first.”

“This is… it’s different, it’s different.”

“This isn’t different! I come on the boat with you, I keep you company, we fuck a coupla times, and then you’re off again, to the next place, to the next person.”

“How could you possibly fucking know that?”

“But I do Mikhail! I see it all the time! I’ve lived here my whole fucking life, you don’t think I don’t notice my sister spending summers with goddamned sailors? They promise they’ll write, but they _never_ write, Mikhail. That’s just how this works,” Ian clamors angrily. “I guess I’ve spent this whole time pretending like I didn’t know. Like maybe I thought you were… fucking _different_ or something. But you’re not. You have a pretty wife and kids who love you. You’re not coming back, you’re not writing to me, you’re not taking me with you. Cut the bullshit, put me on your endless list of fucks, and move on to the next one.”

Ian deflates then, taking his place on the wall, his face flushed. Mikhail watches him with melancholy eyes. He searches for words, for anything to say, some sort of reasoning that might convince Ian to come back to him but he has none. Because Ian’s right.

Silences sits on their shoulders.

“It’s too goddamned quiet on the boat now,” Mikhail says after a while. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Just that there is far too much inside him to keep his mouth shut. “It’s too fucking quiet. That’s never happened to me before.” He sighs. He can feel Ian looking at him. “I keep getting up in the morning expecting to hear your rocks hit the window or, I dunno… wondering what stories you’d be telling me, turning around to tell you to shut up. I keep thinking I’ll hear your bare fucking feet on the deck and have to tell your dumb ass to be careful for nails. That’s…. that’s different.” He looks down at the floor, shutting his mouth again, grinding his teeth.

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say in one go,” Ian says, just barely above a whisper.

Mikhail glances up at him. Ian has this look on his face, like he’s surprised or something.

“Yeah well I’ve got a lot to say about you, Ian Gallagher.”

Something is there in Ian’s eyes again that Mikhail hadn’t even realized was missing. Ian looks at the floor, his fingers pulling at the threads of his sweater.

“Enough to tell me not to go?”

Mikhail is reminded of the beach again. Of Ian leaving, of not being able to say it, not being able to stop him.

“That’s not what I meant,” Mikhail says flatly.

He looks up when Ian starts moving.

“Come take a walk with me,” Ian says, shuffling across the small space, disappearing down the ladder. Mikhail looks out the window for a moment before following, climbing down after Ian. He follows him through the barn and out onto the windy plain, Ian leading him up the road.

They walk in silence. The trees seem to be tall soldiers, lined up one by one. The ground is hard beneath their feet.

“Where are we going?” Mikhail asks as they walk. He has a feeling he knows where it is.

“It’s a surprise,” Ian murmurs and that makes Mikhail smile, the two of them walking side by side with dumb looks on their faces.

It’s exactly where Mikhail expects. The clearing in the trees is familiar, the swollen hills rising up in front of them. They find themselves laying beneath the tree in the dirt.

They lay for a long time before anyone speaks.

“I’m not mad at you,” Ian says. “Well… I am. I _was_ I guess. But… I don’t know.” Ian huffs out a sigh, Mikhail turning his head to look at him. “I don’t want to _stay_ angry, is what I’m trying to say, I think… we… we don’t have a lot of time…”

Mikhail’s face softens as Ian turns his head as well, meeting his gaze.

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Not being angry.”

Ian smiles a little. His forest eyes flash and he reaches a hand out to touch Mikhail’s arm briefly before it falls back to his side.

“When do you ship out?” Mikhail asks. There aren’t any stars out tonight, the sky an endless abyss like the bottom of the ocean.

“Mid-September," Ian says, turning his head to look at Mikhail for a moment, watching the way his chest is rising and falling beneath his cotton shirt. "We only have a month left, Mickey."

“Less than that.” Mikhail turns his head to face Ian, the two of them looking at each other. Ian's brows push closer together as he blinks.

"What do you mean?"

"I have to head out earlier than I thought," Mikhail says flatly, shaking his head.

"When?" Ian asks, his freckles pressing closer together as the skin of his nose wrinkles.

"End of August."

"What? Why?" Ian’s face twists with concern. He pushes himself up into a sitting position, his body swiveling to face Mikhail with somber eyes. The wind blows his hair about. Mikhail reaches up to fix it for him.

"Fish've run dry, we gotta head out," he says.

"I thought you said _Novemb_ _er_."

"Plans change, kid. You of all people should fucking know that one," Mikhail mumbles, dropping his hand and putting it back behind his head.

They're quiet for a moment, Ian staring at Mikhail, his face swimming before he turns back to face the hills, propping his arms up on his knees. Mikhail watches him, wishing he would lay himself backwards and press against Mikhail's side. He wants to touch him, get as much touching in as he can before they part. He doesn’t have the strength to open his mouth, sitting himself up instead and moving so their upper arms are brushing. Ian doesn’t look at him.

“It doesn’t make a difference. What’s another two weeks?” Mikhail says, his gaze falling to the ground before him. Ian is quiet for a long time.

“Everything,” he finally says. “Two weeks would be everything.”

Mikhail wants to disagree, tell him those two weeks would be spent immersed in dread, that they would just be extending the torture, but Ian’s right. Mikhail would give anything for two more weeks with him. Two more weeks of breathing him in and memorizing the way his voice sounds.

“Yeah well, two weeks is nothing compared to fucking forever.” Mikhail looks at Ian, watches the way he flinches, his fingers clutching at his trousers.

“It’s not gonna be for forever.”

“It’s for goddamned ever, Ian.”

Ian turns toward him, his face red. “It’s _not_ , you’re coming back.” Mikhail does nothing but stare at him and wish his big green eyes wouldn’t well up like that. “Don’t fucking… don’t do that, okay? Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?”

“Truth hurts,” Mikhail mumbles, giving Ian a look, his heart in his throat. It’s been sitting there, rotting away for the past two weeks.

The two of them stare each other down for what feels like a lifetime of insanity. Mikhail can see the anger returning to him, pushing out the sadness, and by god does he know what that’s like. It’s so much easier to be angry than sad.

Ian punches his shoulder abruptly, Mikhail’s head snapping up so he can look at him. He narrows his eyes before punching Ian right back, cold knuckles colliding with ridged corners of flesh and then Ian is swiveling, meeting Mikhail’s eyes as he hits him, this time in the gut. Mikhail grunts, keeling over for only a moment before lurching forward. Everything is easier then.

He retaliates with a fist to the underside of Ian’s jaw and then the two of them are on top of each other, punching and elbowing and kicking, rolling in the dirt like wolves.

But it isn’t long before they give up, lying next to each other beneath the tree. It’s quiet besides the wind blowing the branches. Their chests rise and fall with quick heaves, the two of them covered in dirt and bruises, Ian sporting a split lip, Mikhail’s nose bleeding red, despite how many times he swipes at it.

Ian turns after a minute, moving to lean over Mikhail, reaching up and wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, his left eye swelling with a cloudy violet bruise.

“Don’t apologize, dumbass,” Mikhail blubbers, sounding like he has cotton balls in his mouth, his jaw numb.

Ian chuckles a little, and it turns into a big laugh, his head ducking to rest on Mikhail’s chest as he rumbles with amusement, still rumbling and then it doesn’t sound like laughter anymore. It sounds wet and painful and Mikhail wraps his arm around Ian’s head, slipping fingers through his hair.

“Cut it out,” he says, rubbing circles into the space behind Ian’s ear. “Don’t… you’re gonna… you don’t need to fucking cry over me, alright?”

“I’m sorry,” Ian murmurs into Mikhail’s shirt, only to receive a small slap to the back of his head.

“What did I say about apologizing?” Mikhail asks, laughing a little himself now, dropping his head to lean back on the grass as Ian tries to contain himself. He drapes his arm over Mikhail’s belly, listening to his heartbeat.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Ian says just to piss him off, the two of them chuckling at each other, wishing this was okay, wishing they didn’t have to move from this spot, wishing it could just be the two of them on this hill with the gaping moon as witness.

Eventually their laughter dies out. The sun’s just coming up. It’s the kind of sunrise that Mikhail’s only ever seen on the ocean. Clouds cover the sky in a dark blue blanket, a sliver of gold between the clouds and the horizon, lit up bright as if the hills were on fire, red like the bloody aftermath of a battle between the sky and the land, Ian and Mikhail fallen soldiers.

Ian turns his head, resting his chin on Mikhail’s sternum, looking up at him.

“Mickey, I…” he starts but Mikhail shakes his head, his fingers still in Ian’s hair. He knows what Ian wants to say, and it’s too much for words.

“I know,” Mikhail says, nodding. “I know.”

Ian chews on his bottom lip before laying his head back down on Mikhail’s chest, watching as the gold thickens, the clouds above them swelling as rain begins to fall onto their faces. Ian would have said two months ago that the rain was angels crying up in Heaven for them. But how can there be a God in heaven if he takes the only thing that matters away from people?

Mikhail had told him once that there was no God at sea. And maybe he was right. Not out on the ocean, not here in the hills. Just Ian and Mikhail, utterly alone, nothing to save them now. Ian had wished, the night on the boat, that nothing else existed and that it was just the two of them floating like stars in space. But now Mikhail is going away and there will be nothing. Just himself. And he’s scared half to death, drowning in the grass on an empty hill in Ireland. He clutches Mikhail’s shirt tighter as if Mikhail would save him again, but it’s no use. One drowning person can’t save another. They’re going to sink together. Together and completely apart.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


	7. Endless Cerulean

_Day Month, Year; Place (It No Longer Matters To Sailors and Farm Boys)_

The days pass slowly, falling and twirling in a rose glass glow. Mikhail is in a constant state of held breath.

Ian spends his time on the boat, the two of them sitting in their trousers at the bow, the sun beating down on their backs as they pass cigarettes. He goes home at night and Mikhail dreads every sundown.

“Come with me,” Ian says one afternoon.

“Where?” Mikhail mumbles and Ian is taking him home.

As they walk up the dirt road he imagines Ian’s small house full of cobbled shadowed corners and dark beneath the chairs.

The door looms. Ian opens it, light from candles inside turn the archway golden.  The whole house is happy. Ian’s younger siblings chase each other around the living room and his older siblings laugh at the table with neighbors from across the way.

“Can Mikhail eat with us?”

“I made plenty of food,” the one named Fiona says and with that Mikhail is part of the family.

He doesn’t know if the Gallagher’s have always been that way, sucking people in like a storm drain or if they’re desperate to hold together something that’s falling apart.

Mikhail eats with them, sitting around a crooked table, passing bowls of stew and plates of bread. Ian holds his hand between their chairs, his pink knuckles tightening every few moments just to be sure Mikhail is still there. Mikhail helps them clean after dinner. He sits with Ian on their sofa and pretends like this is his place, his family, like he can come home every night to this.

Before he leaves, Fiona pulls him into the small kitchen.

“I don’t know what you are to Ian, or how long you’ve been like this, and I don’t care. All I ask is that, if he asks you to write, you _write_ ,” she says, and she isn’t malicious, only protective. Her tone makes him miss his mother. “Don’t you dare hurt him.”

It’s then that Mikhail realizes that he and this family are both after the same thing; holding on to Ian. It’s the reason he’s been pulled in, why he can eat their stew and their bread and laugh when they laugh, why he’s suddenly become a Gallagher. Ian.

“I won’t,” he tells her, but he already has. He’s hurt Ian unimaginably. By having a family in Ukraine. By leaving him. They’re things he can’t take back. But she smiles and lets him leave because she doesn’t know.

That’s the last he ever sees of Ian’s family.

The weeks slip out from under them. Ian comes by in the mornings with left overs. They are quiet most of the time. They fish. They swim. They breathe.

And then the last day.

\--

The cold has started to creep across the ocean. Mikhail has begun to ready the boat for open water.

Everything is in black and blue, a cloud front falling over the town, keeping the sun out. The ocean murmurs to him, calling his name like she knows he’s coming for her, like she’s going to swallow him up.

He wouldn’t mind being swallowed up, not now.

Ian’s bare feet on the deck to the tune of his heartbeat. His voice looping over the hull. His pink colored knuckles bruised and Mikhail doesn’t know why.

Minutes fall.

They fish. They breathe.

“I wanna show you something,” Mikhail says, when the day dims, light barely filling the cracks in the clouds.

“Show me what? Ian asks, sitting at the bow, his back speckled with water as he watches Mikhail steer at the helm.

“It’s a surprise,” Mikhail says and they both smile.

The boat drifts, Mikhail taking them out so far that they no longer see Larne on the horizon. It’s as if they’ve become detached.

Mikhail drops the anchor where the sea is lonely. She grumbles beneath the boat.

“This is it?” Ian asks, leaning over the railing to look into the water.

“Just be patient,” Mikhail says. They sit side by side on the deck, speaking quietly, smoking cigarettes, the world getting darker and darker. Once the sun has gone all the way down, Mikhail stands up, pulling Ian to his feet. They lean at the railing together.

“Jump in,” Mikhail says, taking a last drag from his cigarette before snubbing it out.

“What, why?” Ian mumbles, frowning.

“Don’t fucking question me, just get in the damned water,” Mikhail says, his mouth curling up into a smile.

Ian looks at him, and then looks at the water, rolling his eyes and pulling off his shirt, waist coat, and trousers.

“It’s too cold for this,” he says, shivering a little before he gives Mikhail a hasty look and climbs to the top of the railing. He falls into the water.

The cold is sharp on his skin. Behind his eyelids is nothing but blackness. For a single moment he is deaf and suspended in a black abyss.

He comes up for air a moment later.

Everything is different.

The water all around him is lit up in blue as if the world had turned upside down and he were swimming in the sky, surrounded by stars. He gasps, nearly jumping backwards. Every time he moves, the water ignites with cerulean. He looks up breathlessly as Mikhail suddenly comes jumping into the water, a cannonball of lightning in the dark. He comes up for air.

Ian grins at him, the light casting deep shadows on Ian’s face, the blue catching in flecks in his irises.

Mikhail will never forget that look, that look of wonder, Ian’s green eyes wide and bright and stunning, full with nothing but joy. Like they had been when he still looked young and he burned bright like a match.

“What does it? What makes it light up?” Ian asks, ignoring the cold tightness in his chest.

“I dunno,” he says. “Magic, maybe.”

Ian laughs. He’s far too old to still believe in faeries from the wood and mermaids in the sea. He has long since forgotten the idea of magic. But this could be it. This was too wonderful to be real.

And besides, what real thing could make him forget that Mikhail was leaving in the morning.

“Has this always been here?” Ian asks, trying to catch the blue in his hands, watching the light shine over his skin in rivers.

“Yeah,” Mikhail says, and he’s moved to lay on his back, floating mercilessly in the water.

“How have I missed this?” Ian murmurs, almost to himself.

“You’ve never been brave enough to come all the way out here.” Mikhail’s eyes are closed. Ian moves to float too.

“Are you calling me a coward?”

“You’re out here now, aren’t you?”

They’re silent for a moment, skin feeling like rubber in the cold and the sea salt.

“This used to be a secret,” Mikhail says.

“Not anymore.”

“It’s still a secret, you just know about it now.”

“How long do you think it’s been here?”

“Forever.”

Ian nods, his arm brushing Mikhail’s as they float.

“Kinda like love, then.”

“What?”

“It’s kinda like love… it’s there all the time, but only brave people see it… or maybe not brave. Maybe just stupid people.”

Mikhail smiles, just a little.

“Yeah,” he says, and the two of them quiet again.     

They stay in the water until the cold makes it hard to breathe. Mikhail gets them towels to dry off with and they sail back into the marina, watching the water light up in the wake of the boat.

They dock and Mikhail opens a bottle of whiskey. Eventually Ian is kissing him and it’s like the night weeks ago, only the stars aren’t reflected on the water, and it’s easy to see between the sea and the sky. It’s easy to know that they’re still on earth.

“What’s your sister like?” Ian mumbles, late at night while they lay in Mikhail’s hammock, Ian leaning on his chest, tracing the ink of Manya’s name on Mikhail’s shoulder. Mikhail blinks, having just been on the verge of sleep. He swallows.

“She’s ruthless,” he says quietly. “And probably the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

Ian smiles.

“What does she look like?”

“Like me, but taller. And prettier.”

Ian chews at his lip, feeling the way Mikhail breathes.

“How come you never talk about your family… you never talk about anything.”

“It’s not interesting,” Mikhail says.

“Bullshit.” Ian shakes his head, sitting up a little. “Tell me something, tell me about… I don’t know… just… something.”

Mikhail doesn’t know what to say. He swallows, trying to think of something, anything, something important.

Perhaps, the most important.

“My mother died when I was fifteen,” he says all of a sudden. “In Russia. She brought Manya and I to a peaceful protest in Saint Petersburgh, at the Palace and they… they shot into the crowd.” He shakes his head. “Uh, Manya and I had to come home on our own and… when we got back she walked to the end of the long pier on the left of the marina and sat there with her feet in the water. She wouldn’t move, I had to… I sat with her through the night, fell asleep on the dock, and when I woke up she was still sitting there, just staring at the horizon like she was waiting for something. And uh… and she said to me, she said that the ocean was the only thing you could ever trust. That it wouldn’t kill you unless you asked it to.”

The boat is quiet. There is nothing but the off distance sound of ship bells and the ocean, always murmuring.

Ian’s breath is warm on Mikhail’s chest.

“Mikhail…?” Ian says against his skin. “Don’t… don’t ever ask it to, okay? Please?”

Mikhail swallows, and he’s reminded of Fiona pulling him into the kitchen, telling him to not let Ian down. Not to hurt him.

“I won’t,” he says, reaching up to run his hand through Ian’s hair. “I won’t.”

\--            

Eventually Ian drops off to sleep on Mikhail’s chest, his fingers clutching at Mikhail’s skin. Mikhail lays beneath him, quiet but awake, until the sun rises and he has to carefully slide himself out from under Ian, making sure not to wake him as he dresses and steps out of the boat.

The other fishermen he’s been making rounds with are already up, carrying boxes to their boats, laughing loud and mighty against the sunrise as they prepare to ship out. Mikhail jumps from the boat to join them, but doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t know if he has any laughter left in him.

Ian wanders out once the suns fully broken the horizon and he comes to help Mikhail carry things, packing the boat and tying down the nets, storing blankets and food and fresh water for his voyage. They don’t speak. The ropes squeal as they pull on them and the floorboards creak, the boat holding a conversation for them.

“Hurry it up, Mikhail!” says a man a dock over, waving for Mikhail to get a move on, some of the boats already beginning to head out.

He and Ian hop down to the dock to untie the boat.

“I’m scared, Mickey,” Ian blubbers all of a sudden, Mikhail straightening to look at him after untying the last knot.

Mikhail shakes his head.

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met, Ian,” Mikhail says. “You’re going to be fine.”

Ian’s face screws up, his cheeks red.

Mikhail clenches his jaw, stepping forward to grab Ian by the collar.

“You listen to me,” he growls. “You’re not going to fucking die, okay? Don’t you dare die on me. You make it back here. You take over the farm and keep your sisters away from bad news. Don’t you even think about dying, you hear?” Ian swallows. He nods, but Mikhail can feel him shaking. “Good. Now go home Ian. Don’t sit here and watch me sail away.” He pushes on Ian’s chest, pulling away and moving to jump back onto his boat.

Mikhail’s brain almost doesn’t register Ian grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him around, he does it so fast. And then Ian is pressing his mouth to his, clinging to Mikhail’s shirt. Mikhail’s hands come up to cup Ian’s jaw tightly, pulling him in closer, not wanting anything else for the rest of eternity.

Mikhail pushes away abruptly, wiping his mouth, his heart beating hard in his chest.

“Go home,” he says quietly, biting his tongue, giving Ian another look before he jumps up onto the boat and heads for the helm.

The boat begins to pull away from the dock and Mikhail will never be able to put into words, the feeling in his chest in that moment. It’s not the worst feeling he’s ever had. No, that is saved for the red splattered across the snow and his hands in the cold winter of St. Petersburgh. But maybe, it’s the thickest, the most vibrant feeling he’s ever had.

Ian stays put on the dock and Mikhail shakes his head, clutching the helm harder, turning to look behind him to make sure he hadn’t hit anything, Ian getting smaller and smaller as Mikhail pulls away.

“Wait!” He looks back to see Ian running towards him, waving for him to stop. “Take me with you!”

“What!?”

“Take me with you, Mickey, please, I can help with the boat,” Ian yells as he comes to the end of the docks, Mikhail just passing him.

“You can’t come, Ian, you know you can’t!”

“Yes I can!”         

“ _No!_ Listen to me, Ian, you’ve got a duty and it’s coming back from war to your family!” Mikhail calls. “You can’t leave them behind for some stupid sailor you met two months ago!”

Ian falters, and he looks like he’s ready to dive into the water as the boat pulls away.

“But I love you!” he calls, his voice cracking.

Mikhail stares at him, trying to claw at the lump in his chest. Everything gets a little colder, a little harder.

“Well you better fall right out of love, Ian Gallagher, everyone knows you ain’t supposed to fall in love with sailors!”

The sunlight makes Ian’s hair look like it’s on fire, like he’s a burning match standing on the dock, getting smaller and smaller as Mikhail floats away. Mikhail swipes an arm over his eyes.

Mikhail better fall out of love too. Because the sea is trustworthy but she’s also unforgiving, pulling you along like the tides. She loves you. She kisses your skin with drops of salt and rocks you to bed when your head is spinning, and when it’s time, she will cradle you on her soft sand belly and sing you into your last sleep.

Boys from Larne with eyes like green hills can only be kept in locket photographs but the ocean is everywhere and always and why would you fall in love with a boy in a locket when you could fall in love with the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mickeyslegs.tumblr.com


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